She sat with her back to the brick column
holding up one corner of a vestibule, she found useful
as a public sorting place for the private
contents, of her camel coloured purse, remarkably scat-
tered as her “crappy life”, special plastic box held her short term
fix, IT, took a carefully cared for, crack pipe.
Running late was I, and eye contact was made
and I quietly but firmly said to the seated glazed eyes look-
ing up at me, “might be best if you leave.”
…next day kilometres away, early morning bank
deposit, and a coffee run, me and the dog, out
for fun “car rides” bring her much delight, a voice
from behind said “mister, mister you gotta help me!,
I’m, not an addict, and last night I could not get home,
rode transit for free out to here from Kitsilano but,”
she breathed, “in the it cost me a ticket for one
hundred and seventy five dollars, when I got caught”
I looked at her, seeing her hair dishevelled and a face full
of what, despair…? “so what do you want from me?”
She
ran on with her mouth, playing with her top, the sentence was
run on and wouldn’t stop. “I made some bad choices, came here to meet my EX, found him with a girl having sex, and I need ten or twenty,
bucks to get me home, the transit cop said he would not let me back on and would still be working until three A.M., stranding me, until this morning see?!”
We
went back and forth, verbally,
“transit does not cost that
much, stop asking me for
money!”, and she fired
back,
“my math is bad,
the money would be
nice and do your Karma
good, I am a big believer
in that”, finally I left her
with a small handful of
small change and watched her walk
away, got in my car, got my coffee, got going home…
but as I drove by her, she was standing back to the hedge,
calm had returned as she waited, her hair was in place,
I saw something I failed to observe during our dialogue….
under her arm was
that camel coloured
purse…two women
suddenly became one
I finally recognized her but she did not recognize me, from the day before.
"EXCERPTS!" 